"02 - Mischief in Maggody Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hess Joan)

I winced at the image that came to mind. "I'll see if I can dissuade him. But tell me more about these hippies and the Emporium."

Ruby Bee looked gratified by my attention. "They fixed it up and reopened it last week. They sell hardware, chicken feed, notions, and the regular stuff, but they also sell all sorts of strange-smelling herbs and crystals and little bottles of oil that are supposed to cure headaches and impotency. Right in the store they play weird music that doesn't have any words or melody." She took a deep breath. "What's more, they live together at the end of Finger Road, in that dilapidated old house just past Earl Buchanon's house. One of them told Earl it was a commune. He thought that meant they were communists and was all set to go over with his shotgun, but I told him to wait until you got back from your so-called vacation. Earl's president of the local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and real touchy about communists."

(Allow me to digress from this fascinating narrative to explain the plethora of Buchanons. There are hundreds of them sprinkled across Stump County, worse than hogweed. Incest and inbreeding are their favorite hobbies, which has resulted in beetlish brows, yellow yellow eyes, and thick lips. They aren't strong on intelligence; the most they can aspire to is animal cunning. An anthropologist from Farber College once tried to sort out the genealogy, although nobody ever figured out why anybody'd want to do that. Rumor has it she tried to kill herself at the county line, and ranted in the ambulance about third cousins twice removed and fathers who were also uncles and half-brothers. Her family hushed it up with some story about a diesel truck, but everybody in Maggody knew better.)

"I'll see if I can dissuade Earl, too," I said, thinking I never should have left town. "But with the Emporium open again, we won't have to mortgage the homestead to buy nails at the Kwik-Screw, or drive all the way into Starley City for a monkey wrench."

Ruby Bee looked as if she might snatch back the pie. "What about them living in sin and doing all sorts of bizarre things? Why, they sit in the backyard morning and evening--stark naked, I might add--and hold hands and chant all sorts of things nobody can make any sense of. They burn funny-smelling little sticks while they do it, too!"

I curled my arm around the plate, just in case. "How do you know? Have you been out there by invitation? Shall I guess your mantra?"

"I am offended by your saying that," Ruby Bee snapped.

Estelle bobbled her head in support, looking like a hungry guinea hen over a ripe worm. "What they're doing is probably against the law, and you ought to go out there and do something about it before they corrupt all the children in Maggody. Everybody knows they smoke marijuana and engage in group sex like a bunch of farm animals."

"Farm animals don't engage in group sex," I pointed out as I popped the last bite of pie into my mouth. "As long as they do whatever it is they do in the privacy of the backyard, I don't see any reason to stir up problems. They aren't going to corrupt anybody with enough sense to mind his or her own business. For that matter, how does everybody know what they do in the backyard?"

"Kevin Buchanon says he can see their pagan rituals from the top of that old sweet gum tree in his backyard," Estelle said. "His pa caught him and about a dozen other boys in the tree, and whipped Kevin so hard he still can't bend over to tie his shoes. You'd of thought Kevin would have outgrown such foolishness by now."

I started for the door. "Well, I'm not sure who's likely to be corrupting whom. If nothing more exciting turns up, I'll go by the Emporium this afternoon and see if there's any debauchery going on under the notions display. But there are so many exciting things going on in Maggody, and I'm liable to get sidetracked by an armed robbery at the bank or homicide at the Laundromat."

"You are not as clever as you think, young lady," Ruby Bee called to my back.

"And you be at the beauty parlor Tuesday morning at ten o'clock sharp," Estelle added. "I'll take you over to Madam Celeste's and make the introductions." With my ice skates, since hell would have frozen over about the time I did that.



2


I drove to the PD, reasonably pleased with lunch and already testing excuses for not showing up at Estelle's on Tuesday for my appointment with the psychic, of all fool things. The sheriff's deputy, who'd been minding the store during my "so-called vacation" (I'd forgotten to find out the subtle nuance there), flapped a hand in greeting as I came through the door.

"Welcome back, Arly. Have a good leave?"

"I thought I did until a few minutes ago. I visited some friends on the East Coast, camped on the beach, drank cheap wine, gazed at sunsets, and did everything I could think of to forget this ugly place. Anything happen while I was gone? Did we have a rash of bank robberies, holdups, homicides, Russian spies, and international dope busts?"

"Yeah, I had to beat off the ABC, the CIA, the DEA, the EPA, the KGB, and so forth right down to the VFW. Some guy from network television interviewed me, and I received three purple hearts." He gave me a chagrined look as he slapped his chest. "Lordy, I forgot to wear 'em today, just when I had hopes of impressing you."

"I'm sure your wife's impressed enough for the both of us," I said, moving around the desk to my chair, a comfy old cane-bottomed thing that had held my fanny for more than eighteen months without a whimper. Or a splinter. "Anything else?"

"You're going to love this, Arly." He began to edge toward the door. "Jim Bob Buchanon came by couple of days ago and left a little present for you. It's on the table in the back room."

"A present for little old me? It's not my birthday, and it's nearly two months 'til Christmas. Did Hizzoner the Moron miss me so much that he felt compelled to leave a welcome-back present for his favorite public servant?" Despite my flippancy, I was a tad nervous. "Is there a sentimental, storebought card along with it?"

The deputy had cleared the door sill and was eyeing his car. "No card, but he had a message for you that'll make your day--ha, ha. He said the town council voted not to hire a deputy for the time being. Budget's awful tight, he said two or three times, but he didn't look all that sad."

"And the present?"

"It's one of those beeper things like doctors and county agents wear so their secretaries can track them down on the golf course. You're on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."